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tv   PBS News Hour  PBS  October 25, 2013 6:00pm-7:01pm PDT

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captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: the leaders of france and germany demanded talks with the u.s. to resolve a dispute over the wide reach of n.s.a. spying. good evening, i'm judy woodruff. also ahead on the program, paul solman treks into the woods, with new yorkers who weathered superstorm sandy a year ago, determined to survive if an even bigger disaster were to strike. >> it made you step back and look at everything and say, "wow, i need to be prepared." >> woodruff: and it's friday. mark shields and david brooks are here, to analyze the week's news. those are just some of the stories we're covering on tonight's "pbs newshour." >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:
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>> support also comes from carnegie corporation of new york, a foundation created to do what andrew carnegie called "real and permanent good." celebrating 100 years of philanthropy at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and friends of the newshour. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: there were fresh calls today in europe for the u.s. to rethink its spying activities across the atlantic.
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"newshour" correspondent kwame holman narrates our report. >> reporter: european leaders wound up a summit in brussels, demanding an end to u.s. eavesdropping on their people and themselves. revelations this week said cell phone calls by german chancellor angela merkel were monitored by the national security agency. also, that thousands of french phone records were collected. today, merkel joined french president francois hollande in calling for a no spying agreement with the u.s. by year's end. >> ( translated ): i think the most important thing is to find a basis for the future on which we can operate and as i said today trust needs to be rebuilt, which implies that trust has been severely shaken, and the >> ( translated ): france and germany will take an initiative, we will start discussing the we will make sure that between the various services, we can not only clarify what happened in the past but we can agree upon rules for the future.
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>> reporter: the u.s. has similar agreements-- dating from world war two-- with britain, australia, new zealand and canada. in washington today, state department spokeswoman jen psaki said the obama administration is ready to discuss the issue. >> we are happy to have those conversations and listen to our partners around the world as they express their concerns. as we cooperate with those and many other countries on counterterrorism operations, and we expect and are hopeful that that will continue. >> reporter: meanwhile, in "usa today", president obama's assistant for homeland security- - lisa monaco-- pointed to a review of u.s. intelligence gathering, commissioned by the president. she wrote, "we want to ensure we are collecting information because we need it and not just because we can." but there were also skeptical voices. republican senator marco rubio of florida-- who's on the intelligence committee-- said much of the outrage from european leaders is for show. >> these leaders are responding
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to domestic pressures in their own country. none of them are truly shocked about any of this. they're aware of it because of my third point, and that is everyone spies on everybody. >> reporter: still, germany is sending its top intelligence chiefs to washington next week and members of the european parliament will visit, as well. >> woodruff: we'll have more on the diplomatic and financial fallout from the surveillance revelations, after the news summary. the federal government's point man for fixing the faulty health care website says most of the road blocks can be cleared by the end of november. jeffrey zients told reporters today it will take a lot of work, but, in his words, "healthcare.gov is fixable." the obama administration also announced that q.s.s.i.-- one of the companies hired by the government to work on the website-- will take the lead role in overseeing repairs. j.p.-morgan-chase agreed today to settle claims that it misled mortgage giants fannie mae and freddie mac about risky mortgage securities. the bank will pay $5.1 billion. it's still negotiating a broader
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deal with the justice department. the mortgage securities lost billions of dollars in value when the housing bubble burst. wall street finished this friday on a high note. the dow jones industrial average gained 61 points to close at 15,570. the nasdaq rose 14 points to close at 3,943-- its highest point in 13 years. for the week, the dow was up 1%. the nasdaq was up more than 1.5% demolition began today on the school in newtown, connecticut where a gunman killed 20 children and six adults last december. the razing of sandy hook elementary is expected to take several weeks. plans call for every trace of the old building to be removed and a number of townspeople said it's for the best. >> i've lived in town for 54 years. i've lived on this street my whole life. we're a very strong community and we're going to overcome
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this. we're going to move on and they're going to put up another beautiful school and we're going to move on. >> woodruff: the new school is expected to open by december of 2016. in nigeria, the military announced an air and ground assault killed 74 suspected fighters from the islamist group boko haram. the offensive targeted two camps in borno state, in the african nation's northeast where boko haram has its strongest presence. also today, the nigerian navy said it's working to rescue two americans who were kidnapped by pirates this week from an oil supply vessel. ousted chinese politician bo xilai will spend the rest of his life in prison for corruption and abuse of power. the former member of the ruling politburo lost his appeal today, flanked by security guards in a courtroom in eastern china. he'd been a rising star in the communist party before being engulfed in scandal. >> woodruff: still ahead on the
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"newshour": new limits from the f.d.a. on prescriptions for pain killers; getting ready for a worst case scenario. plus, shields and brooks on the week's news and a look inside college football programs. >> woodruff: europe's anger over surveillance activity by the united states is just the latest foreign policy disruption created by leaked information from the national security archives. former n.s.a. contractor edward snowden did the leaking. he's now in moscow, resisting u.s. efforts to prosecute him for espionage. ray suarez looks at the fallout from his actions. >> suarez: it began on june 5, the "guardian" newspaper in london first reported the national security agency has monitored millions of domestic and international calls by verizon customers. a day later, disclosures of a
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program named "prism" that gives the n.s.a. access to servers of major internet companies. president obama was quick to defend the surveillance. >> nobody is listening to your telephone calls. that's not what this program's about. they are not looking at people's names, and they're not looking at content. but by sifting through this so- called metadata, they may identify potential leads with respect to folks who might engage in terrorism. >> suarez: the president insisted the program did not apply to u.s. citizens or those living in the u.s. but in late june, "stellar wind" was made public. the program collecting bulk u.s. e-mail records began under the bush administration and continued until 2011. on august 21, the n.s.a. released court documents, acknowledging it inadvertently gathered thousands of
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e-mails a year from americans not connected to terrorism. meanwhile, objections arose overseas with reports that the u.s. and britain spied on diplomats during the 2009 g-20 summit in london. and that u.s. intelligence bugged the embassies of several key allies as well as european union offices. >> ( translated ): if it is confirmed that diplomatic representations of the european union and single european countries were bugged, we must say that eavesdropping on friends is unacceptable. it is a no go. we're not in the cold war anymore. >> suarez: on august 30, "the washington post" reported u.s. intelligence carried out more than 200 cyber attacks in 2011 aimed at the likes of iran, russia, china and north korea. and, in september, a brazilian t.v. newsmagazine reported the n.s.a. targeted communications of president dilma rousseff. >> ( translated ): meddling in such a manner in the life and
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affairs of other countries is a breach of international law and, as such, it is an affront into >> suarez: similar surveillance targeted mexican president pena nieto. still other reports, showed the n.s.a. has cracked the security of international financial transactions, plus americans' social media connections. and just today, a new "washington post" account said u.s. officials fear documents not yet made public could compromise relations with third countries that reportedly aided u.s. efforts. what impact have the revelations had on u.s. interests abroad and intelligence operations? p.j. crowley is a former assistant secretary of state for public affairs, now a professor at george washington university. and philip mudd, a senior research fellow at the new america foundation, held senior positions at the c.i.a., f.b.i. and the national security council. p.j. crowley, these latest revelation, the surveillance of the communication of
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heads of state and heads of government, is that a serious breach, serious diplomatic problem for the united states now? >> is a serious and awkward diplomatic problem for the united states. you know, that said, at the end of the day, interests drive relationship, politics matters. it animates those relationships and the willingness of leaders to stand together in common cause and do whatever needs to be done to keep their perspective countries safe. you know, those relationships also matter. we have been through these stresses and strains before. we when through them with wikileaks, remember that iraq wasn't very popular during the bush administration. so i'm confident that because the relationships with the united states and europe is so deep, is so broad, is so meaningful, we'll get through this. but it will take some time. >> suarez: philip mudd, how seriously should we take the furry coming from europe today? >> i think this is a short-term problem.
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as pj suggested, i'm not sure it is a long-term issue. the issue is not just the revelations and isolation, it is this cascade through the summer and into the fall about spying on americans, spying on citizens in europe, spying on foreign leaders. this cascade is going to, i think, lead to months, maybe a little longer of tensions. these political leaders to to respond. but when security services feel a threat, for example a threat from terror cells they will continue to cooperate regardless of what we see at the political level. >> suarez: but philip, is there a qualitative difference between the germans for instance, knowing that we are looking at their e-mails and phone calls and actually sharing some of that intelligence with them, and the idea that their chancellor's phone is being tapped? >> i think there is a qualitative difference. i as a former professional look at this and say i'm not sure what value you get, what the cost benefit is when you look at the chancellor's phone. i don't think the cost is worth it i'm not sure what the value is of those conversation. that said, i could see value
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at looking at other information across europe, for example telephone numbers that might suggest that someone in europe is talking to a phone number we have on file in a place like yemen so there is a qualitative difference in looking at the leader of an ally country, i think. >> pj, are there specific things that get set back during a period like this, trade talks, ongoing consultations over security, things of that nature? >> well, i think philip is right that at the intelligence level the cooperation will go on, provided there aren't some political decision. and that's item consultations and dialogue that has already started is very meaningful. i think in these kinds of things, there's no bright line between secrecy or surveillance and privacy and intelligence cooperation. those lines are con stanley being redrawn. and so you know, i am sure that there has been political guidance given to the u.s. intelligence communities already. you know this is a steep far pulled back so that a jay
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carney can stay at the white house, whatever he might have been doing before we are not doing that now, we will not do it in the future. so these conversations will go on country by country by country, and new understandings as part of it. in the substance of this you know, we are embarking on new trade negotiations. privacy issues are something that will be negotiated. there is a difference of view between the u.s. side and the european side on where that line is drawn. and i'm sure this will have an impact in terms of the tone and substance of these negotiations going forward. >> philip mudd, even amidst news of bugging, high level phone communications, prime minister david cameron in the u.k. said that this is signaling it to people who mean to do us harm, how to evade and avoid intelligence and surveillance and other techniques. that this is a setback in part because it tips the hand of international intelligence agencies, as to how we're doing this.
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is that a loss on these revelations. >> i think it's a potential loss. let's not overplay that, there a big difference between what you are collecting, the phone cause of a leader, of citizens and countries like france, and how you do it. this is more a conversation about what we're doing. it is em bar rags, i don't necessarily think people are learning about sort of the pipes of how we collect this kind of information in a way that could allow them to avoid our surveillance. and furthermore i'm not sure a terrorist could lock and say hey, they've given me a clue about how to communicate more securely across the terror network. the embarrassment is what we are doing, not how. >> suarez: do you agree with that, pj, that in effect there are trails that go cold from this kind of thing? why don't you just get rid of all your cell phones if you know that the nsa might be listening to the ones you've got? >> i think through revelations that have come through the snowden affair, back to revelations in 2006, any terrorist, for example, you know, has to know that any time he uses any kind of
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electronic gear he is leaving digital fingerprints thatçó will have an impact. so i agree with that. by the same token you can't dismiss that in the short term, you know, there haven't been some, you know, some instance-- instances where we've lost some intelligence channel because of this. but i think there is this larger question, why would you spy on your friends. i mean think about what we have just gone through in the past 30 days here in the united states. a political circus, surrounding the debt, closing of the government. i'm quite confident that leaders overseas turn to their intelligence professionals and said find out what the u.s. bottom line is here. you know s the united states going to drive over a fiscal cliff and take the global economy with it? so understanding the thinking and psychology of not only your adversaries, but also your friends, that actually pave the way to
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identify shared interests and pursue them together. >> and quickly, philip, are there assets that need to be rebuilt? is this going to cost a lot of money as well? >> i think it possibly will. when you look at the adversaries we really worry about, that is things like international crime syndicates, terrorists, they are going to be studying it this closely for tactical clues about how they avoid this. it is not this instance in isolation that the chancellor's cell phone was intercepted. as pj said if you are a terrorist and don't know your cell phone is being intercepted, are you not a very good terrorist it is the cavalcade of information over the sum their a terrorist will look at the on the internet and find clues about how to avoid it that will cost money to catch up over time. >> philip mudd and p.j. crowley, gentleman, thank you both. >> thank you, ray. >> that. >> woodruff: online, our chief foreign affairs correspondent margaret warner writes about the so-called "five eyes" countries- - the u.s. and four allies who have agreed not to spy on each other.
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>> woodruff: the use of prescription pain killers has grown substantially in the u.s., providing relief to millions, but addiction to the drugs is also on the rise. more than five billion pills were prescribed to nearly 50 million people in 2011, according to the most recent government estimates. now, regulators want to set new limits on how they are used. hari sreenivasan looks at what the government wants to change. >> sreenivasan: the painkilling drugs in question contain the narcotic hyrocodone. it's often found in brand name drug such as vicodin or lortab. the f.d.a. said yesterday that abuse of them has reached epidemic levels in some parts of the country and announced plans to change the way the drugs can be prescribed and refilled. barry meier of the new york times has the details. he's long covered this subject and is the author of an e-book called "painkiller." so barry, kind of lay out the changes, what is the fda thinking about recommending? >>. >> sure. the biggest change here is that the fda is recommending
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that doctors prescribe these drugs in the way that they are only available for a 90 day supply to patients. previously they have been available for as long as six months. and now patients will have to bring in these prescriptions rather than have the doctor phone them in. so it's both a reduction in the amount that doctors can prescribe, and kind of the logistics of getting patients to bring them in. >> so these drugs have been around for quite some time now. what is the problem with the fda is trying to address? has it gotten worse? >> actually, it has gotten woferments i mean it's always been fairly bad. but it's increased significantly in recent years. there are huge supplies of these drugs kind of washing around in the society. a lot of them are used for legitimate pain control purposes. but because you've got this huge inventory out there, many of them end up on the street. kids go into medicine cabinets and steal them. so what effectively is being
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done here are efforts to crank down on the supply and hopefully reduce their misuse and abuse as a result. >> and besides the problem getting worse, why is it acting now. this is a conversation that has been debated over time by quite a few people. >> right. >> it's a very good question. i think there is increasing political and public health pressure on the fda, that has essentially spurred this action. i mean as recentlyly as earlier this year they were claiming at public meetings that the kind of scientific equations that would cause them to make this determination have not changed. so it's there kind of belatedly getting on the train that public health advo caughts have been on for many, many years. >> so let's talk a little bit about the impact that it's going to have on people who legitimately need this. who aren't using this for an abuse of purpose. >> right. it will have impacts on those patients that can't be denied. i mean essentially this is going to impact people living in rural areas who
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don't have access to many doctors, older people who may be housebound. and people in nursingomes who can't run down to the drugstore. and fill a prescription. and in state, there are some states where nurse practitioners who previously could prescribe these drugs will not be able to do so unless state laws themselves change. >> so do most patients that are using these drugs the right way, are they on these drugs for an extended period of time? >> well, most patient was get these drugs are actually on them for a very short period of time, maybe 14 days or so. the peopleñr who take them longer and that's usually considered greater than nine days, many of them are taking them edge legitimately. some of them are dependent or addicted to the drugs. and essentially what this will do will require these patients to see their doctors more often. and that may be a good thing
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because wile these drugs are intended to reduce pain, you want people with these problems to also increase their function, get out more in society, resume their work. and doctors be able to check on them. >> so what's the pushback likely to be? we've got on one hand the pharma companies, doctors, patients groups. they're all in opposition of these recommendations. >> i think there is still going to be significant pushback. the government however seems to be fairly committed to this course. so in terms of effecting the government decision in this area, that may be done for now. so you'll have pushback on the state level, in terms of making sure that people without can prescribe these drugs now are still able to do so. and hopefully changes that will make sure that these drugs areñi still available to people in situations like nursing homes who need them. >> all right, barrymeier
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from "the new york times", thanks so much. >> it's been a great pleasure. >> woodruff: time for a change of pace. it's been nearly a year since superstorm sandy hit the east coast. we'll have reports tied to its anniversary next week on what's being done to prepare for extreme weather events. but tonight, a different take from a less conventional group of folks preparing for disaster- - natural or man-made. the "newshour's" paul solman has the story. >> all across america, people are preparing. >> reporter: the once-august national geographic society's huge t.v. hit "doomsday preppers." >> i'm going to survive a genocidal siege by building a tunnel that will lead my family to safety. >> reporter: now, whether they fear terrorist attack, a polar shift, zombie apocalypse, or, these days, more proximate
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threats like u.s. debt default and global economic chaos, natgeo's ever-more-popular preppers seem to be prepping for a war of all against all, which is why they practice bugging out: quickly leaving their lairs with just enough supplies for a couple of days enroute to lives away from their fellow would-be antagonists. season three of "doomsday preppers" debuts october 29-- the one-year anniversary of superstorm sandy, which threatened to doom new york. were there new yorkers, we wondered, among the two million or so americans who reportedly consider themselves preppers? sure enough: a meetup group known as the n.y.c. preppers network. and so we repaired, one friday afternoon, to bugout practice a couple of hours drive, or, in case of catastrophe, a couple of days walk, north of new york, in
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what passes for wilderness around woodstock in the catskill mountains. the organizers had said they'd arrive between noon and 1:00 p.m. >> preppers? >> reporter: improbably, given that this was prep for an emergency get-out-of-town evacuation, they were late. jason? jason? when fireman jason charles, who runs the meetup group, arrived three hours later, he explained that he'd had to buy dog food before bugging out. >> my wife, she ran me on a bunch of errands before we had to go. >> reporter: some buggers out showed up even later. >> i've been camping once in my life and i had no intentions of ever going back. >> reporter: jodi paulovich is a realtor and local cable access t.v. host. >> live from new york city, it's "the jo show!" >> i am the antithesis of your stereotypical survivalist. >> reporter: but stormy weather
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had driven city slicker paulovich and boyfriend joe suba, an actor and stunt man, out into the wild. >> i was there when sandy hit. so i've seen people in lines, i have it on video-- lining up down the block, pampers, milk-- and it's like, "hey, are you going to stand there, or you are going to do something?" >> reporter: sandy converted prison guard preston williams as well. >> i had just had surgery on my shoulder and i was in a sling, and trying to run through thigh deep water with an eight-year- old. it was scary, because you didn't know how high it was going to go. it made you step back and look at everything and say, "wow, i need to be prepared." >> reporter: what do you do now that you didn't do before sandy? >> well, i started dehydrating food. usually i will try to cook a big dinner and then i will dehydrate it and pack it away and put it in a barrel. >> a disaster is a test, and this is a test. basic idea is for everybody in the group to live out of their
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bug-out bag for two nights. >> reporter: so armed with food and water, ropes and knives, tents and sleeping bags, the new york city preppers trekked the two-mile trail up slide mountain. the "newshour's" suburban slickers, you may not be surprised to learn, trekked back down to spend the night at a motel. but we were back at the campsite at the crack of dawn, to see how the preppers had fared. the first casualty had been preston williams, the food dehydrater. he wound up with a case of, well, dehydration himself a gastrointestinal illness that keep him confined to his cocoon. jodi paulovich had had better nights herself. >> lying on the mud, and it was so hard and there were all these tree-roots under us, and even though our sleeping bags were pretty warm, it was still freezing. it was just freezing.
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>> reporter: as might be expected if one were really fleeing the ravages of an october storm in the northeast. so first on the weekend agenda: learning to make a fire. then, how to use a compass, read a map. >> there's true north, grid north, magnetic north. >> reporter: helpful when setting out to find water. though a word to joe suba: next time, maybe ditch the bottle, and bring a flexible bladder bag, like everyone else. also, it turns out there's a reason for cargo pants. then it was back to camp for a little gruel: some precooked chicken, italian tuna fillets in olive oil? >> why not? i mean, why bring those yucky cans if i can bring this. >> reporter: and finally, the critically important first aid class with jason charles apologizing for his handiwork. >> this is by far the crappiest looking stretcher you're ever going to see. >> reporter: okay, we admit it: no matter how pervasive preppers are becoming, or how earnest
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they are, it's almost irresistible to make fun of them, especially urbanites first venturing out of the asphalt jungle. but in the end, we thought we learned something worth sharing. the basic vision of the prepper movement is that ours is a mad max world in which, once disaster hits, you take from the other guys before they take from you. or, as jodi paulovich put it: >> we don't want to be stuck on a little island with crazy people in martial law. >> reporter: and yet, here was a stunningly diverse group of random new yorkers brought together by legitimate fears with, perhaps, a whiff of paranoia, who were learning what? to prep for disaster by depending upon each other; to survive, but in community, trusting people they'd never before met with their very lives.
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>> and when you're taking him out, keep his head above the broken extremity. >> reporter: community, not every man for himself, as the key to survival come doomsday. a hopeful punchline with which to end a news story for a change. >> woodruff: it's been a big week for finger-pointing, here in washington and joining us to explain why are shields and brooks. that's syndicated columnist mark shields and "new york times" columnist david brooks. so gentlemen, we're not going to talk about how to survive in washington. but we are going to talk about the fingerpointing, david, some of this week around the health care.gov web site. do we now understand what has gone wrong? >> a little better. we knew that there were all these contractors. and we knew that instead of contracting out the job of
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coordinating contractors, the government kept that to themselves. and that's where the biggest problem seems to have been. but there were other problems. some of them which were political. they were very late in writing the rules that all the contractors needed to follow because they didn't want to give the republicans mitt romney a target during the campaign so they waited until after the campaign to write the rules then delayed other things. and the inherent complexity of the law. so this is going to stretch onyard. and at the same time they had 3.5 years to do this which is more or less the easiest part of the health care law. some of the more challenging things getting young people to sign up. that's still to come. and so whether we have confidence in our ability to do that, that's an issue. >> confidence? yet mark? >> i think it's hard to argue, judy. we've been supporters of the law that hasn't been disappointing. and even discourage the experience up to now. but if it is a year from now when the subject of health care comes up people are talking about their next door neighbor with the chronic disability without for the first time has health coverage or mammogram
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or expanded mental health coverage, then it will have worked and this will be something that is in the history books. if they're still talking about the nightmare of dealing on negotiating with health insurance or the portal to t then you can write-off 2014 for the democrats and you can to a large degree put down ot bama administration as failed. >> woodruff: well, is it clear now who is to blame or does it matter, david, at this point, for all this? >> well, i mean there are many ackers within hhs and elsewhere who i guess you could assign blame to. there is a big debate should somebody be firred about this. i'm a little dubious including essentialuous. i'm dubious about fighting. this was deeply within the institution. clearly the president was not tochld he was not told how badly things were going. some people within the bour october see understood that. he was told its with going well. he was not told how badly, how late the initial testing was. we now know that was only a couple weeks before the
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launch. it was not your basic standard procedure as this thing is done. i don't think firing is necessarily the right thing to do. but basically excising or exporting it out to the private sector seems to be what they are do. >> i couldn't disagree more. what we saw yesterday at the hearings is an olympic event of fingerpointing. we're seeing this piratization fever that was particularly prominent, don rumsfeld and dick cheney t is the idea that we can do it all by contractor. well, when you do it by contractor, it's essentially an effort to undermine public employment. to disable public employee unions, and ostensibly to cut cost. it well, it increases cost, now we do have with jeff-- as the czar. >> they brought back,. >> brought back, we now have accountability and responsibility in 1 place. i would add to that, judy,
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if you are going to, secretary sebelius who is the point person on this, if he thinks or anybody thinks that her resignation, her firing is going to satisfy darrell issa and republican critics of this, i've got a bridge i want to sell. i mean this is not. it's going to increase the fever. i'm not in any way denying responsibility. but i mean that would just be-- and the other final point is if each succeeding administration is concentrated more and more power in the white house, more and more decisions, george bush did more than bill clinton. bill clinton did more than the first president bush did. and barak obama's administration has taken that to a level we've never seen. so the idea that the president wasn't informed of it is a pretty grievous indictment of the president staff. >> which say quickly who mesd up here it wasn't the
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priv at contractors, hhs, it was the government who messed up in coordination of the private contractor, apparently the-- were, woing, it was the government body that wasn't working because they're just not built the way a business is to run a complicated web site. i'm not sure they have ever shown evidence of that. as for the firing i never think it is political useful but they have to up the management skills as we get to the complicated stuff coming down the road. and so thinking more about haefling actual managers in there would be use weather for retribution doesn't matter. >> i will happily compare the management of medicare to the management of jpmorgan. and. >> it hard to compare but medicare should be a simpler program. >> it, i agree. >> this is a complicated program. >> but both of you sound like now you think with bringing back this man, jeffrey-- with putting it under one company, maybe things are on track? >> well, i think -- >> is that what you hear. >> they've established themselves the window. jeff stein says and others that it has to be done by
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thanksgiving, essentially. if it isn't moving then, if the glitches, wrinkles, whatever you want to call them aren't ironed out at that point, they've got real problems. >> i would just say of the ten things we're worried about with the implementation, the web site was not top ten, there are bigger issues still to come. >> woodruff: another big headache for the administration, in the last few days, these revelations, david, that the nsa is spying on our allies, our friends in europe, all the way up to heads of state, angela merkel, the german chancellor, president hollande of france, how much damage has been done by in? >> i think a lot. i'm offended by it i was offended when they were sprying on reporters. now they are spying on angela merkel? i mean who are these people? is there no sense of prudence. of what possibly we can return from this. of respecting the proif see, some instinct all respect of the privacy of someone you need and trust? oom's just wondering where these people's heads are at. if you are going to run a government, you have to have a passion. you have to have a passion to protect the country but you have to have some sense
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of proportion, some sense of prudence. and i have seen that in our national security apparatus all over the summer. one thing after another, they seem to put-- we're going to invade anybody's proif see we would place no value on that. and no one apparently thought about if this goes public whose trust are we burning. how do we create a community without trust. so i'm moderately offended by all this. >> offended? >> i am. david is right. first of all, is there a more important ally than west germany, is there a more important ally than chancellor merkel. and so the idea of listing on her cell phone s that the kind of thing we did it because we could do it? i mean did anybody ask should we do it, is it the right thing to do? how is it going to be for her. this is revealed, we're doing it, in a country where she grew up, the stasi, listening in on everybody's conversation. what is it going to do to her relationship with its
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united states, the charge she has been too complicity with the united states and not independent enough. i just think that there is something, the technology is so fascinating, this kind of takes over and it live leaves prudential judgement way in the dust. >> woodruff: is the excuse though from the administration that they just sweepingly heard the discussion earlier, ray, that they are just sweeping everything up. and in so doing they catch up even the chancellor's phone calls. >> it's the shall did -- if you were barack obama would you want them to do that to you? there is some basic respect for privacy. again a community and alliance is built on trust. and they have to think well, they wouldn't do it to me because i'm their friend. and if they don't think that, what kind of community and alliance do we have. i should point out the two top stories are both heavily tech related. and how the technological revolution is both changing government and changing what we think about government. one of the things david cameron has done is taken tech people, at least one tech person and put him at the top of government, in the cabinet level just to reflect on all these issues
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that come across various departments. >> but the repercussions are more than technical, aren't sne. >> they really are. and i just hope that it leads to some introspection and country of just what we are doing. and you know, an old line here that benn bradley, the former director of "the washington post" said if you want to do something, if you want just imagine the front page of the "washington post" tomorrow morning. before you do it. and i mean just-- just think how it is. i mean why did chancellor merkel call. because the spiegel had run the idea that she was being tapped it. i mean in her own country. >> woodruff: all right, last couple of minutes, class politics, david. in the aftermath of the shutdown and the whole showdown over the debt ceiling, a lot of soul-searching on the part of republicans. we had a couple conversations on newshour about it. is there some rethinking on the part of republicans about who they are, where they're headed, what they believe? or is this, are we just in a
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pause and then we go back to business as usual. >> i swrenly think there is rethinking. i think on two levels. first the donor base. i think some of the donors in the business community, especially are finally getting organized to create a counterforce, to counterthe tea party and the ted cruz movement and secondly on the presidential level this is quickly going to turn to a presidential debate with chrisistie on one side, ted cruz, rand paul more or less on the other, maybe rubbio thrown in there quickly this debate will turn into a presidential debate between the two wings of the party. and it will look a little like the reagan rock fell are recall he don't want to overstress that but there will be two distinct wings to the ep republican party who will go led to toe in the presidential primaries. >> i think that the chances you mentioned in 2016, what we have been through with the rollout, and the health-care plan and as well as the nsa. i think it heightens the chance that there will be a governor, will make the better claim. someone who has run something. that president obama was an inspiring leader but it just, it didn't run things well. i want somebody who is going to run things.
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i say this, judy, countering david's point which i think is a valid point. republicans have lost five of the last six popular elections at presidential level. they have had one major victory in the past 25 years. that was 2010. they won 63 house seats. and republicans argue well look, normally the guys in the blue state, mitt romney and we lost. we nominated john mccain, mr. bipartisan who worked with democrats across the aisle and lost. when we were unapologetically conservative in 2010 we won. now that's we ought to do in 2016. the problem is, in 2010 when the republicans won 87 million people voted. in a presidential election, 129 million people. >> of those 42 million people who voted in 2012 that didn't vote in 2010, 18 million of them were african-american, latino or asian. and 8 million were voters between the 18 and 29. the republicans have to figure out a way, unless they are going to get 40
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million people home every presidential election day, they've got to figure out a way to talk to the concern, the hopes, the ambitions of people who are not white, not old, and not republican. that's their only hope. >> and i would regard the last year or two as wasted in an effort to try to do. >> really. >> well, they've been so focused on posing obama they have to the been for much. and who are you serving, who are they serving? >> they're against obama, okay, i got that. what are they doing for you, for you, for you. i still don't know the answer to that question. >> just on health care t is repealing, it, where is the replacement. all we heard is the repeal. i have no idea what the republican health-care plan is. >> we have to plan to repeal or replace either one of you. mark shields, david brooks, thank you. >> and mark and david keep up the talk on the doubleheader recorded in our newsroom posted at the top of the rundown later tonight. >> woodruff: finally tonight, a behind the scenes look at the high cost of college football.
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jeffrey brown has a conversation about what's wrong with one of america's favorite pastimes. >> brown: the glory and scandal of big time college football. there is a lot of both in the sport that generates millions of dollars in fans an huge amounts of excitement and controversy. that line also serves as the subtitle of a new book that explores numerous case studies and investigations. titled the system, co-authored by jeff benedict and joining us now armen keteyian, correspondent for cbs news and "60 minutes" sports on showtime. welcome to you. >> thank you, jeff. >> brown: first of all, the system, not the sport, right, and not the game. why explain what college football is, why is it the system? >> well, when we were thinking about the book, i always had the vision in my head of a machine, almost like a matrix like machine made up of all these different component part approximates, whether it's a coach or athletic director, recruit, a hostess, a tutor. and what jeff and i really ended up trying to produce
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was a book that was smart, was sweeping, took you behind the scenes but really through the eyes of the people that worked within the system. >> brown: one of the recurrent themes is money t a very, very big money sport, right? you explain, it's interesting, that few colleges break even or actually make money. >> it's one of the great ironies. you have about the last set of statistics that came out was 2010 and 11. only 22 of the 120 top tiered programs at the time were actually breaking even or macking money. yet at the same time, more and more schools were buying in to big time college football. >> brown: so 9 obvious question is why do they do it? >> because it's no longer, really, jeff, about the if the ball program. the football has reached far beyond the field of play. it's really now become an extension of the school, a brand, a way to market the school. and schools are willing to enlarge measures on, you know, fund these programs as loss leaders if, in fact, they can make it to the big
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stage. >> brown: and that leads to a kind of, what you document over and over again, a kind of arms race or going up to the line and sometimes over the line of how things are done. for example, the payment of coaches which is stratospheric for some. >> absolutely. you have two coaches, nick sabin and matt brown, as texas and alabama making north of $5 million a year, you have 16 coaches making more than $3 million a year. su have 79 kemps making more than a million dollars a year. and that is really, that is just part of it i mean you have schools now that are anting up 100 million dollars, washington state we talked about, in the book, making an 80 million dollar investment in a football facility. alabama has a ritz carleton kind of facility for its football program but rightly so. alabama has, is generating north of 90 million dollars now. so it's really they are-- they're not football programs any more. nick sabin is in charge of a
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hundred million dollar business. >> brown: you're making the case almost that he is worth 5 million plus. >> he's worth 20 times that to the university of alabama. >> brown: he is an unusual case, right? >> he is, but also matt brown of texas, urban myer at ohio state, brady hoke at mitch minute. let's say the nick sabin affect at the university of alabama. their football revenue went from $52 million to $80 million in one season. they're now north of 90 million. the donations that come in, the johnny mandel effect at texas a & m is a perfect example. >> woodruff: . >> brown: there are a lot of case studies. many of the recruiting scandals rise out, many of the scandals rise out of recruiting. >> absolutely. >> brown: one of the ones you're talking about is called, the so-called hostesses. and it's a case that the university of tennessee now, that's one that, you know, you don't see when you are watching -- >> absolutely. >> brown: what are hostesses. >> well, hostesses are essentially the first face that a college will cute, a high school recruit will see
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coming on campus. they are vivacious, flirtatious, they know the program inside and out they have been tranned to act as the really, the out front face of the program what jeff and i document and on the record through a young woman named lacey pearl herbs at tennessee was her experience as known as the closer. she was the top hostess there. and what happens is, is there are sexual relationships that go on between the college girls and the high school athletes come in. not in lacey's case but there is a tremendous amount of flirtation. and intimation that the possibility of a relationship exists. and that's a powerful allure. think about it. a high school boy, 17 or 18-year-old, on essentially a weekend date with a 21 or 22-year-old girl. it's a very power will. kind of like a secret weapon that these schools have. >> brown: an its's under the-- well, it's known by the norths in this case. >> oh, absolutely. the schools, you know, the
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hostess programs are integral parts of the athletic departments in many ways. and certainly in the media guides, they're treated as these sort of inert but outgoing aspects of the program. when, in fact, particularly in conferences that are so competitive like the sec, they are crucial to getting these recruits to commit. >> brown: what is striking is that in so many of these, the people you talk to, everybody you talk to, really, coach, college presidents and so on, knows that something is wrong. and yet it continues. >> you know, i've likened college football to a runnaway train. and i think the fuel right now, and you touched on it, are the athletes themselves. they are the single most valuable commodity in college football right now in these 70, 80, 90, 100 million dollar programs. my question has been is who is in the engine room, where is the conducter? >> brown: you don't know the answer? >> i don't know the answer. and i don't think college football knows the answer right to you because i haven't seen one college
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president in the last threeo four months stand up at a time when college football is going through a lot of problems, stand up and say look, we have to make some changes. the nca gets a lot of blame but i think it goes back to the college presidents. and right now the only sound i'm hearing is silence. >> brown: and yet no diminute eschment in appetite, in ratings, in enthusiasm for the games. >> absolutely not. i mean and what's happening here too, jeff, is next year this pressure and this monies that's pouring into the sport is only going to get worse in the sense of the amount of pressure that's going to be on the coaches and players. >> because you have a play-off. espn is going to spend $413 million to televise three games, the two semies and the national championship. and all of that pressure like an invaded pyramid will fall on the shoulders of these 18 to 22-year-old kids. >> brown: having spent a couple years investigating all this, you said you condition watch a game any more in the same way. >> i can't. and i think when you read this book, good and bad,
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whether you are an avid fan. >> brown: you are a fan. >> i'm a total fan. more so now than i ever was. because i totally believe in what these kids are doing. and i feel they're sweat and sacrifice an commit suspect beyond belief. but the system is a sum of its parts. what you see on saturday whether you are in the stadium or you are much whatting on television, what goes into that spectacle, that's what the system is really all about. >> brown: all right, armen keteyian, is the co-author with jeff benedict of the system, thanks so much. >> you bet, thank you. >> woodruff: and jeff continues his conversation on-line about what it took to get behind the scenes access. again, the major developments of the day: france and germany called for talks with the u.s. to resolve a dispute over surveillance. the point man for fixing the government's health care web site said he expects most of the work to be finished by the end of november. and j.p.-morgan-chase agreed to
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pay to settle claims that it misled fannie mae and freddie mac about risky mortgage securities. it will pay $5.1 billion. on the "newshour" online right now: can't figure out what to wear for halloween? art beat's got you covered. we've compiled some fun costume ideas inspired by famous masterpieces. check those out, and if you decide to dress up as a work of art, tweet us a photo and we'll share it. details are on our homepage. and read what an eavesdropper overheard and then tweeted from former n.s.a. director michael hayden's phone conversations on a train. all that and more is on our website newshour.pbs.org. and a reminder about some upcoming programs from our pbs colleagues. gwen ifill is preparing for "washington week," which airs later this evening. here's a preview: >> ifill: bad health care rollouts, political civil
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wars, spying on friends. and why we may have seen this movie before. we dell of into all of that tonight on washington week. judy? >> woodruff: tomorrow's edition of "pbs newshour weekend" looks at a program to teach computer science students how to be hackers. here's an excerpt from their report. >> i'm a big believer that the best defense is an offense. and if we're going to have an offense, we've got to have people who are really talented drawn to that field. people like these college undergraduates, who just might be able to save america's corporations and governments from the bad-guy hackers. they're students at carnegie mellon university, one of the nations top computer science schools and they're learning to fight off the bad guys by thinking the same way they do. they're learning to be the good guy hackers. >> woodruff: "pbs newshour weekend" with hari sreenivasan airs saturday and sunday on most pbs stations. and we'll be back, right here, on monday with a report on how new york is preparing for the
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next major hurricane. one year after superstorm sandy hit the east coast. but before we go, we're saying farewell to our longtime friend and colleague, ray suarez. so ray, you have covered the world for us. you've been to just about every corner of this country. you've covered education, global health, politics, immigration, everything in between. you brought your smarts, your passion to every day you've come to work at the newshour. and boy, are we going to miss you. >> suarez: thank you very much, judy. it's been my great privilege to work for one of the greatest audiences in american broadcasting. you know, we depend on the people that we work for to keep us alive. we're not just sending these signals out into space to just float around. we're talking to you. and we value you and it's been my great privilege to be a public broadcaster in this country, at a time of tremendous change and
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fascination and i'm glad that i have had this time with you and the rest of the newshour team. >> woodruff: well, it's been our privilege to have you here, ray i have to say, you just finished another book, the latino americans, a pbs documentary based on that you just go from one project, one success to the next one. >> suarez: and lots of great things are waiting out there for me. i can't say what i will be doing next, but i will be able to say soon. and the base that was laid in here, and a lot of the great things that i've learned working here will serve me very well in the future. >> woodruff: well, we will miss you. we know the viewers are going to miss you and we wish you the vest best. >> suarez: thank you very much, and so long. >> woodruff: that's the "newshour" for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. have a nice weekend. thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:
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